by admin | Apr 28, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Have you ever lashed out unfairly at a family member or a friend? Maybe you’ve even taken your frustration out on a rodeo judge who you know really did make the right call or gave you the right score. When we’re under frustrated and feeling pressure from situations that are outside our control, we can sometimes let our guard down and get angry more easily.
James 5:7-11 is taking us near the end of James’s letter but some of what we learn at the very beginning of his book in the Bible comes back to play. He first wanted us to expect trials in our lives but to trust that God would let use them to help us grow in our faith. He also warns us to be more careful about listening harder and being slow to get angry.
Knowing many of the people reading his letter have faced hardship under the control the wealthy landowners have and struggle with being poor, he asks those struggling to remain patient and not turn against each other.
Instead, he asks them to be patient, again trusting in God to see them through their struggles.
James 5: 7-11 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
He uses agricultural language we can still understand today about the importance of patience as we wait on God the way a farmer has to be patient as he waits for the rains to come at the right times to bring about the harvest.
If we lose our patience and grow angry with one another, he warns them that God, described as Judge, is not far away and they could face His judgment for their own actions against each other instead of waiting for Him to take care of the ones who have been abusing their power and creating the hardships.
Job from the Old Testament, who lost absolutely everything and suffered almost unbearably, saw everything eventually restored by God and James reminds those who are suffering of the importance of hanging on and waiting on God.
We don’t know why some find relief in suffering or from their trials and some do not, but we know that all who have a saving faith in Jesus receive a perfect life where there are no trials or suffering when we pass on from this one.
Cowboys of the Cross is a rodeo/bull riding ministry that leads cowboy church services at events and maintains an online presence to share the gospel and make disciples among the ranch and rodeo community. They can be found at CowboysOfTheCross.com
by admin | Apr 15, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
If you’re a large ranch-owner, could James be writing to you if he wrote his letter today? Originally written to the Jewish churches, James takes an often aggressive and harsh-sounding approach to encouraging us to live out what God’s word teaches us.
At the start of James 5, he turns his attention to wealthy landowners that were in control of a lot of Galilee, though his message would apply to all wealthy people, and he takes a strong tone against any who have misused the power their wealth has given them. He gives them a warning.
James 5:1-6 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
When James tells them to week and howl at what miseries are coming, he doesn’t mean an immediate justice for their abuses and actions that have led to defrauding or even the death of some of the poor. James is talking about the eternal consequences that living a wealthy life can lead us to if we abuse that wealth. A person with a saving faith in Jesus, who has repented of sin and been forgiven through the sacrifice on the cross that Jesus made in our place, isn’t going to live like this any more.
But for those who have chosen to continue living this way, abusing their power and taking advantage of the poor, it isn’t likely that they have found the forgiveness of a life in Christ because that life leads to change.
James is writing to those who continue to live their lives focused on themselves with strong language that they have fattened their hearts by living in luxury and face their own day of slaughter, referring to God’s judgment against them. He reminds them that God has heard their cries, meaning God is fully aware of any abuse or sinful living they have enjoyed but that there is a cost to that; without a saving faith in Jesus that moves us away from sin, we face God’s wrath and eternal separation from Him in hell.
It isn’t about having wealth that leads us to God’s judgment, it’s about using our power to our own advantage and not caring for those, like those who work for us.
Most of us our employees but some of us are the ones who employ others, whether it is farm hands and laborers on ranches and farms or the staff of a small or large business we own. Those who own the ranch are naturally going to have the most wealth. That’s okay. But how do you treat the people who work for you or that you trade horses with? James wants us to live a life that reflects Jesus in us, not one that reflects those without a saving faith that are greedily pursuing their own sinful desires.
by admin | Mar 24, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Anyone who gets on the back of a bull or a bucking horse knows they only have so much control over what is about to happen when that chute gate opens. Anyone who runs a cattle operation knows they only have so much control over their operation to affect the prices come market day.
In the Book of James, James wants us to understand it’s God who is in control and it is Him we need to recognize is in control of those outcomes, including a 90-point ride or a buck off and a record market price or a devastating wildfire that burns through the pasture.
James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
James offers some pretty strong words to make us think about our place in our own plans when we have no knowledge about what tomorrow is going to bring.
Wildfires have been raging through Nebraska recently and we’ve seen them burn their way through Texas multiple times in recent years. Just a year ago, I found myself grabbing what I could and feeling my own home with the glow of an approaching wildfire in the night sky. I had been watching television and expecting to get up the next morning getting ready to do cowboy church at a rodeo. Instead, I spent the night in a friend’s spare room waiting for word on whether or not my home survived. Praise God, the high winds we were having shifted the fire north into an unpopulated area until it was brought under control as the winds finally gave up.
It’s a helpless feeling but a hard reminder that, good or bad outcomes, God is in control. James tells us that it is His will we should be seeking in everything we do. He doesn’t call it sin, but instead, choosing a harsher word by calling it arrogant and evil for us to boast to others about our plans.
What makes it arrogant is to think we can control our outcomes. That doesn’t mean we don’t work hard toward an outcome. It doesn’t mean we don’t plan out how much feed we think we might need to pick up to make it through until the spring pasture greens up enough to move the cattle. We plan these things with understanding that we are only here for a short time while God has been in control for generations before us and for as many generations as this Earth has left. We need to seek and follow God’s direction through each decision we make.
He ends the section of scripture with a warning that knowing what God wants us to do and ignoring it is sinful.
by admin | Mar 4, 2026 | James
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
If you’ve competed in the roughstock side of rodeo, you know what it’s like to be judged. In that context, the judge is using his knowledge and a rule book to decide what points to award you or, if the book still has a mark-out rule, to disqualify you for missing it.
That same judge could decide to issue you a fine if you cuss within earshot of the crowd, your dog gets loose in the arena, you have an eagle feather in your hat or you’re wearing an unapproved sponsor patch. There are consequences for not following the rules and the judge gets to determine if the rule was broken and hands out the fine or ban. The rest of us may have our own opinions about the rules or the fine that was given but the judge makes the call.
As Christians, we have a rule book to follow in the form of the Bible and James cautions us against judging others, recognizing God is the only judge.
James 4:11-12 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
Now, the Bible is far more significant in our lives than a rule book. Those with a saving faith in Jesus know obeying rules do not get us into Heaven. It’s only through repentance and asking to be forgiven of our sins that our belief in Jesus saves us from God’s punishment for our sins by Jesus’s death on the cross, taking the punishment in our place.
It’s because of what Jesus did for us that we want to follow what the Bible teaches but it can be easy to forget the sins we’ve been forgiven from when we see someone else that isn’t measuring up to what the Bible teaches us.
We become judges and it often shows up in the form of us running our mouths about the person’s mistake, slandering them and judging them for what they have done.
It’s important to understand the judging someone is not the same thing has talking to them about their sin. If we can’t help someone understand how their sin separates them from God and will lead them to hell without Jesus, we can’t ever share the gospel. Pointing out to someone that cheating on his wife is a sin isn’t judging them when it is between the two of us and is about pointing them to Jesus. That is offering them hope, not condemnation. When we condemn a person and no longer offer them forgiveness for what they’ve done, now we’ve judged them because we’ve not just identified the sin but we’ve held it against them.
That’s God’s place and a very arrogant place to put ourselves as James is saying.
When we use the rules and teachings we find in the Bible and hold it against a person for failing to live up to it, we’ve put ourselves in God’s position. James is basically saying, “how dare you?”
When we have a saving faith in Jesus, we’ve been forgiven all our sins and God no longer holds it against us. If we’ve been given that when we deserve punishment, how can we judge someone else and punish them?
That judgment, remembering we mean also condemning the person, can show up in the form of us gossiping and slandering the person among others who know them, it can be in the form of taking our revenge against them if their sin was against us personally or it can simply be in our attitude toward them in hearts where we look down on them for what they’ve done.
What they need from us is the same forgiveness we’ve been given through the blood of Jesus Christ.
by admin | Feb 18, 2026 | Power in our Words
By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
There’s an expression that sometimes circulates on social media in posts or memes—that the best sermon is lived, not preached.
There’s good intentions in this, but it can really misdirect us.
Our words are incredibly important for two reasons: so that our actions line up with what we say we believe about the Bible and so that we can clearly communicate the gospel. We can live a Christ-like life but if we can’t help people understand what it means to have a saving faith in Jesus, our actions help no one with their eternity.
People want to know why we live differently; why our actions might be different than those. Why did you give money to that homeless guy when you know he’s going to buy drugs? Why didn’t you just knock that guy right off the bucking chutes for acting like that back there? Why would you shake that rodeo judge’s hand when he’s cheated you out of the finals two years in a row?
Even if they don’t come right out and ask it, our actions lead to questions in their thoughts but if they also hear us speak about our faith, they can obviously connect it all together as having something to do with Jesus and the door might open to tell them about our faith if we haven’t found a way to bring it up already.
But how we live our lives and the Christ-centered reasons we give for it can lead to people hating us or challenging us.
1 Peter 3:15-17 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
The hope Peter is referring to here isn’t the same as hoping for a certain outcome, it’s about those with a saving faith in Jesus understanding there is nothing here for us compared to what is to come in an eternity in Heaven. Our hope or trust isn’t in anything from this world but in Jesus and heaven.
Peter wants us to live out a life that honors Jesus and his holiness while being able to tell people how to get to heaven through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, repentance or our sin and a desire to be forgiven in the understanding Jesus took the punishment that was otherwise meant for our sin.
Peter stresses the importance of how we live our lives, that it can actually lead to suffering in a culture that hates Christian beliefs but because of our efforts to live like Jesus, it makes those who come up against us look shameful.
But he also stresses we have to be prepared to defend our faith and share the gospel with others. Our words are necessary to explain that sermon we are living out.
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